"I'm always alone when I make trouble…" thought a blonde man, smoking and staring into the park's fountain as if it were not there. It had been a mantra at the back of his mind for years, coming to the surface occasionally, only serving to make him pissed at his own pathetic brooding.

He was probably the only one who would dare to stop paying attention to his surroundings in this park at twilight. But all the usual suspects for trouble-causing had learned their lesson. This park, at least within hearing range, would be unusually peaceful while Shizuo sat and radiated his irritation.

He slowly became aware of a subtle feeling like a bee standing on his ear, getting stronger, and breath. "You know that's not really true" His elbow moved on its own, striking air yet again, but only because the bastard was way too fast. It was Izaya. Of course it was Izaya. All the usual suspects had learned, but one had apparently enjoyed it.

"What are you doing here Izaya? You could have walked past." He said, teeth clenched. Yeah he wasn't really alone when he messed up this town.

"I also could have stabbed you, but I didn't. I have to choose my opportunities." He smiled. Reaching into a pocket, no doubt containing a knife. "Anything could have happened to you while you were out like that, and I can't have my hobby taken from me."

"Your Hobby?" Shizuo was getting that look of his, where his pulse had started to race and his wrath had started to bubble up to the surface. Usually that state was caused by the mere thought of the person in front of him. "I'm one of your sick hobbies?"

"You thought you were anything less?"

"What the hell do you want?"

"Are we already back to this old set? How boring. Why not say what's on your mind for a change?" Izaya said, dodging a punch. His eyes filling with light and the way he moved changing as if he suddenly weighed nothing.

"You decided to piss me off… which means you want something."

"And if I just want to see your emotions run free?"

"That's a dangerous ambition, spider." Shizuo said with clenched teeth. "Haven't you seen this one a bit too often?"

Izaya shrugged "It's a gateway emotion," he didn't take his eyes off the man, and his breathing had gotten only a bit deeper, but he was coiled and ready to spring. "If I hit just the right buttons I might find out if that adrenaline can fuel your joy or your lust… ooh that one might be fun."

Shizuo shivered. He sometimes woke from nightmares in an awkward sweat, shaking off the feeling elastic all over him, even now. "Just run away."

"Why don't you? If you don't like the things I'm saying." Izaya said as he jumped, using the temporarily dormant fountain as a stepping stone, making the second jump just a moment before the rush of water came back.

"I don't run. Not from you."

"Then we understand each other."

Shizuo watched in detached calm as Izaya dodged a suddenly airborne bench, the lingering stinging in his arms the only thing telling him that he had been involved at all. "Liar. LIAR! You run. You run and hide behind people. You coward."

"That's a bit harsh, Shizu-chan. I've never feared you." Something about the calm in Izaya's expression, the genuine expression of enjoyment, maybe, unsettled Shizuo. It wasn't right. The world was not supposed to look like this. When he couldn't make his body listen to him, when he turned into a wrecking ball, faces were supposed to contort in fear, to show rage, determination or something. Even the people who cared about him had disappointment or caution written all over them when his world started to self destruct. No one softened. No one looked at him as if he were undressing… except the little masochist in front of him.

"Don't call me that." Shizuo's legs moved him towards the man. Haphazardly, he took control, but still found himself running, down an alley that vaguely registered as familiar. He slowed; stopped. He wanted to be cautious. He didn't want to be manipulated by this man. He never had though, and the lesson had never sunk in.

Why should it this time?

"If I feared you, I would have left you alone." Izaya called back, near an open wooden door. "Did you never wonder why I kept trying to break you? If every time made you stronger, shouldn't I have left you in peace?"

"I always chalked it up to 'Izaya-kun is an ass with a deathwish'." Shizuo hissed fighting back the mist that was threatening to take his legs back.

Izaya laughed and skipped in the door, "How little you know me." He said, and Shizuo recognized the building at long last.

"You're insane if you think I'm going in there again" Shizuo said, stopping at the door. It was an old abandoned warehouse that Izaya had made into some kind of dungeon.

"I probably am. You will though. I'm too close for you to abandon those feelings." He laughed "Don't worry, I'll leave the lights on if Shizu-chan is afraid of the dark."

"I'm not angry enough to blindly chase you." Shizuo said disdainfully.

There was an echoed sound of clapping from inside "Ooh so either Shizu-chan has made some real personal growth, or he enjoyed having a moment of public intimacy with me."

"Taunting me really isn't going to work."

"So you say… Hey, remember in highschool, that time your bodywash was replaced with hairgrowth tonic? Did you ever find out who did that?"

Shizuo gritted his teeth and braced himself on the wall. "I have my suspicions…"

"Whooooooever it was had a good thing going, anyways. Is that why you have practically no body hair now? Do you shave it all off? Or wax it?"

"None of your business…"

"Probably waxing, I mean considering how you react to blades"

"Shut up."

"Or maybe It's just my blade…"

"Izaya, Shut up."

"well, you've never actually seen my blade, so I don't know how you'd react."

"Wait what!?" Shizuo's confusion turned to embarrassment as understanding dawned.

Shizuo could practically hear Izaya grinning. "It could be arranged"

What he wanted to say was "Whatever, I'm gone, I'm not playing your games." But everything had gone quiet for him, the world was muffled, his eyes clouded. He heard, as if underwater, his own voice yell "I WILL BEAT YOU TO A PULP" and felt his feet carrying him into the room.

And the response that came, the laughter that made it all surreal, "Well if you're so eager…"

It wasn't long before Shizuo came back to his senses. Without a target he could only be angry for so long, but he couldn't turn back now, the heavy door had shut, and he'd be vulnerable while trying to tear it off. Besides, maybe this would be the time he could do a public service and destroy the damn rat.

The room was different this time, the floors and walls covered in a thick layer of yielding foam that shifted under his feet. Another setup where he had no way to ground his strength, damn. He tried to walk, keeping to the edge this time rather than charging into the middle, his eyes searching for whatever door Izaya was hiding behind.

Something tightened around his ankle, pulling it out from under him. His world spun as he was lifted off the ground, and delivered what, if not for the padding, would have been several sharp blows to the head courtesy of the ground

Shizuo's face went blank. Not this shit again. It had looked like there was going to be a different tactic, and then, nope, back to tying him up. He flopped around limply for a few moments. Looking up he saw the knot around his ankle. He could reach up and loosen it. It wouldn't be that difficult with both his hands free…

Izaya came into the light wearing a dark silken robe, derailing every other thought "Aww is my little Shizu-chan afraid?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"I don't know, It'll be a tough habit to break" he said lightly as he wandered closer. He knelt down to be closer to Shizuo's eye level. "hmm… What shall we do with you…" he poked Shizuo on the nose, which made him seethe and swing slightly. Shizuo let loose the strongest punch he could manage in this position, aimed under Izaya's ribs.

It connected.

Izaya tensed, and laughed, Shizuo had pushed himself away from Izaya an arm's length, nothing more. The man looked down in mock surprise and much delayed said "Oww" quietly and mockingly. He held the wrist that was touching his chest and slipped another loop of the heavy elastic onto it. There was a beep and a tictictic of machinery somewhere that pulled him to the side by his wrist. Izaya walked calmly around behind the, now diagonal, man, and put elastic around the loose ankle, and then the bound one. Untying the first elastic. Tictictic. Shizuo fell down horizontal, but was caught by the bands.

"this is what you spend your laundered money on?"

"No, I borrowed this, the owner owed me a favour and has some fascinating hobbies."

"What kind of hobbies require something like this?" Shizuo said in growing horror.

"You reeeeeally do not want to know." Izaya said, binding Shizuo's last wrist. "Mine, on the other hand I think you'll be interested in." Shizuo found himself staring at the ceiling, surrendering to the elastic's grip on him.

"slim chance of that"

"I want to offer you an opportunity."

"and you need me trussed up six ways from Sunday to make that offer?"

"Have you met yourself? This is for my own safety." Izaya scoffed "I want to offer you the chance to have someone, take what they want to give without fearing for them, and without them fearing you."

"I- I don't follow…"

Izaya let one shoulder of his robe fall. "How explicit do I need to be?"

"oh…OH! WHAT?" Shizuo felt blood rushing to his cheeks. The feeling was unusual; like panic only slower; like rage only more gentle, and it was not a feeling he was accustomed to. "What… what are you trying to trick me into?"

"Who said you were being tricked?" Izaya ran a finger along Shizuo's chest before sitting down on it. "Your next question is probably 'then why me, why someone who hates you?' The answer: I've been told that most of humanity hates my guts. Not much difference on that point. But you fascinate me. Your purity, your guilelessness. How it lets you see through me. I want it."

"You're that lonely." Shizuo said, careful tonelessness overlaying what he feared would sound like sympathy.

"You have no idea…" Izaya rested his arms, chest, stomach, along the man.

"I don't buy it."

"Is it that strange for a lonely young man to want to be thoroughly taken?"

"You always have ulterior motives. If not then why not someone more willing?"

"Note the use of 'thoroughly' I mean you're practically a demigod."

Izaya reached into the robe's pocket, retrieving a square packet that he held between two fingers. Shizuo let out a half laugh "You should try being that careful about not pissing me off… It's not like I'd give you a… I mean I don't have any…"

"I'm always careful" Izaya scoffed, opening the packet with his teeth "but you don't know where I've been"

"Oh but you know about me?"

"Well, of course."

The man stretched out on top of his quarry. Lazily tracing the vulnerable chest as he slowly undid the buttons of the waistcoat and dress shirt. "Come on, say yes, hurt me, Shizu-chan. You were so intent on it before." Izaya took a tiny button-like device from the inside of his collar and fixed it under Shizuo's jaw with a gesture that was probably meant to be cute.

Shizuo wanted to move. He was being flooded with adrenaline. Too much adrenaline. But all he could manage was a kind of wriggling that caused the elastic to dip and bounce him back as if he were a damn hammock. Turning his head so as not to have to look the man in the eyes he said, "I don't know what you're trying to achieve here but I can't do anything without something to brace myself against"

"Stupid Shizu-chan, you know exactly what I'm doing. Though I think I heard there that you wanted to do something. Something that I would be willing to let you do" Izaya's skin was flushed and he was breathing heavily, torn between enjoying having the man like this and embarrassment at the words flowing off his own tongue. "You aren't trying to trick me?" He ran the back of his switchblade along Shizuo's throat and down his chest "If you… dare… raise a hand to me… while I'm like this… I swear I'll slit your throat"

"Seems fair…" Shizuo gave a grim smile, fighting against the chills running down the path traced by the blade. Izaya reached inside his loose sleeve and there was a quiet beep. The bonds loosened slowly and twisted so that Izaya's back hit the soft ground and Shizuo was on all fours above him. Spread out like this, with his attentive eyes framed in lust and his thin arms reaching up, it was almost possible to forget what the monster was capable of. Almost possible, until you felt the metal resting lightly at your neck.

"Lets try this again. Use me. Get rid of your adrenaline and your violence through me." He said, drawing a line down Shizuo's bare chest, down to his pants which he undid in one gesture.

"You are such a ridiculous little pervert."

"Such high praise. Why are you hesitating? You never hesitated before?"

"You thought that I was… You got…"

"Maybe. You're going to think twice before picking a fight with me again."

"You little… MPHHH" he was cut off by Izaya's lips swallowing words as they were said, and legs wrapping tightly around his waist.

"We've never talked this much, Shizu-chan. I didn't bring you here to start."

He started to do what Izaya wanted… No not that wording… focus on the pain in the man's eyes… but that smile… no… he had finally gotten Izaya in a position where he couldn't dodge… no… he needed to distract himself, not put what he was doing into words, he needed to stop these little bolts of lightning travelling through his chest at every reframing he tried "But… why? Why do you want me? Since when?"

Izaya knocked Shizuo's arm away and guided their switch of position. Looking up at the pale skin and dark hair of the man, once more sitting atop him, though admittedly much closer, Shizuo wondered vaguely how it was possible for Izaya to be so aloof, underneath the redness and the shallow breathing. How did he manage to look so much like he could disappear in a moment, even as he was guiding Shizuo's hands to his rolling hips. His voice was clouded, though, and barely audible over the groans that echoed around the room, as it said "Since I drew first blood… aah… Since I saw how fighting… you made my blood race… and my mind sharpen… Since I found my thoughts filled… with ways to torment you…" those words struck his psyche like knives. He watched from behind his eyes as his hands gripped tight and Izaya screamed, laughed, moaned, and quickly covered for the flashes of fear passing through him.

Between bouts of words came bites, markings on the neck, on the skin, and a desperate pull for the muscled and sinewed bodies to feel each other but there was never a lack of awareness. There was never a moment of trust.

"Such a healthy mindset"

"You never asked for healthy, Shizu-chan… though… I would have been out of luck if you had."

"Usually… People don't want to hurt the people they…"

"Are we people, Shizu-chan? Are we really humans?"

"What kind of question is that? I'm human… don't know 'bout you…"

"I love humans" his whisper turned into a moan that got picked up and echoed by that damn microphone. For a moment the world had been reduced to a single sound, vibrating through his body.

"Which means nothing." Shizuo tried to keep his voice steady "Not sure I want to be human anymore"

"Then you're superhuman, my equal. I can love my equal."

"The only one I've seen you loving is that knife of yours."

"And the only one who's ever said they loved you was a knife. Could you call it indirect love?"

"Poor me… actually poor you..."

"Because of your... silly line about losing in front of someone who loves you?"

"That line was badass."

"Good thing I'm not winning much from you right now then."

"Damnit Izayaaaa" Shizuo yelled, but it was reflexive… he had more control than he'd ever had despite in some ways having less. He turned the need for movement in the yell into another roll. He brought his arms back to supporting him, Izaya's shoulder's lay on the ground though the rest of him refused. His back could relax against an elastic tangle that formed around them. Damned brat had been right about redirecting his adrenaline. Somehow, he couldn't be that angry even at the prideful little manipulator looking up at him.

Why did people only say they loved him while holding knives?

One eye, at least, always watched, leaving no opening. No matter how far Izaya was forced into the ground. No matter how many incoherent sounds were drawn out of him, there was never a loosening of his grip on the cold metal at Shizuo's throat, or a moment of lapsed concentration. There was one second at the very end. Where Izaya arched his back, looking away, and Shizuo, biting his lip to keep his own head against the rush of pleasure, saw his opening, clenched a fist… and took a moment too long.

Izaya opened one eye, saw the raised fist, and there was a much louder beep before Shizuo was drawn up again. His voice was hazy and slow but with a note that he was playing again, that had been absent during their tryst "Now I don't know what to feel Shizu-chan. I can't say I'm disappointed, because… well… but I thought we had a deal?"

"You wanted to see my emotions…" Shizuo grumbled… "Not my fault that your face makes me want to hit something."

"Oh well… I'll chalk it up to being caught in the moment then." Izaya whispered in Shizuo's ear. "I'll save my part of the deal for later. It's more fun with you around."

"So generous…" Shizuo hissed as a slight concession to his position.

"Aren't I though?" Izaya gave a little one shoulder shrug. He stood up in a snap and plucked the tiny microphone off Shizuo's chin. Walking off, he gave an over the shoulder wave and disappeared behind what had looked like a piece of the pillowed wall "It's been fun… You know where to find me next time."

Tictictictictictictic

The bonds loosened and Shizuo was slowly lowered onto his back, pulling the loops of elastic off with ease, he muttered to himself "Arrogant bastard. Next time, he says" and wondered at why his own words rang harshly in his ears.

The phone would not stop ringing. Kadota had hit ignore. Togusa had tried and failed to turn it off. But it kept ringing. The call display didn't have a name for the caller. Time to give it up…

He pressed answer.

"DOTACHIIIIN!" came the voice from the other end of the line "Can you guess what I'm holding in my hands?"

"I can think of half a dozen things you might have in your hands, Orihara, I don't think you want me to name any of them" Kadota scowled.

"Oh but it's such interesting reading, Dotachin!"

Kadota stiffened. Surely… "I have no idea what you're talking about"

"Oh so it was written by one of your friends?" Izaya laughed. "Clever girl, Erika. Anri-chan dropped it and I happened to be curious enough to pick it up."

"Damn… I said it was a bad idea…" he muttered "Could we… err… get it back?"

"Before, or after I throw it at Shizu-chan to see what happens?"

"Oh Gods! Don't… for the love of all that's… Izaya, you want to be responsible for the destruction of Tokyo?"

"The thought's crossed my mind." he said "It would make for some fantastic B-movies"

"You're not… angry?"

Kadota had to hold the phone away from his ear for a few seconds due to the explosive laughter. "No, I said it was interesting, didn't I? I want to talk to Erika-chan about character motivations." This phrase caused a shudder in Kadota "and the full set up for these feats she imagines me capable of. It's all really quite flattering. You'd think I was some kind of god, the way she writes of me."

Kadota hesitantly handed the phone to Erika, who had been practically on top of him trying to overhear. She squealed so high that the sound crackled in Kadota's ears.

Once he had recovered his hearing, he could hear laughter on the other end of the line, and a surprisingly docile Izaya saying "Oh, I see. Have Shizu-chan and I been the talk of the town and we just failed to hear about it? Or is it just you and Shinra who like to live dangerously?"

So most of this has existed for a while, The Anrika chapter took way too long...

Decided that today would be a good day to polish it up and present it to my friend whose birthday it happens to be, and who happened to have been poking me (in block caps) to write this since I published chapter 1. You know who you are. 3